We knew that Turkey was gaining in popularity as more people discovered the attractions of the Mugla area on the southern coast on the country. The coastline has a number of established holiday resorts with others developing rapidly under the close control of the local tourist authorities. The weather in this part of the Mediterranean is amongst the best in Europe as far as warm sunny days go.

The authorities of the Mugla area, which includes resorts such as Bodrum , Marmaris and Fethiye recently reported that over 2.5 million tourists came to the area in the first nine months of 2009. Just shy of 50 per cent of those visitors were British, with the remainder made up of Dutch, German, Russian and Belgian tourists. The total figure represent over 97 per cent of last years numbers. The area is served by two airports with Dalaman airport accounting for 60 per cent of the air passengers and the remainder arriving and departing at Bodrum airport.

The Mugla Province, which is Turkey's most popular tourism destination, is governed from the small town of Mugla, which sits 12 miles inland and until recently, was rarely visited by the travellers that come to the area. That is slowly changing and the town now has a number of attractions such as the Vakiflar Hamam Turkish baths and a large, ancient mosque dating back over 600 years.

Other tourists arrive by sea on ferries and cruise ships which dock at the ports of Bodrum, Marmaris, Turgutreis, Gulluk and Fethiye. As a whole 26.3 million tourists visited Turkey in 2008 and the tourist authorities claim that Turkey has now become one of the top 10 most visited countries in the world.

Flythomascook.com operate flights to Turkey including Dalaman, Antalya, Bodrum and Izmir.